Sinaida Michalskaja

info

Sinaida Michalskaja is born in Moscow. She lives and works in Berlin, Germany.

Sinaida Michalskaja’s practice treats paradox as a mechanism for world-building. Merging linguistic observation with sensual experience, she circulates between the digital archive and the domestic object. She often works with found footage and visual and textual citation, re-contextualizing or bringing these fragments into dialogue with one another. Her process is one of rigorous collection: concepts from cybernetics, systems theory, and queer theory are leveled with physical artifacts – rakes, windows, keys. Working across sculpture, photography, video and text, she forces incompatible systems into dialogue. Circularity is not just a motif, but the structural logic of the work.

Her solo and two-person exhibitions include Drei Schwestern (with Andrey Bogush), Shahin Zarinbal, Berlin (2023); mixed feeling breaking patterns, Zarinbal Khoshbakht, Cologne (2020); Soft Hits, Kunstraum Ortloff, Leipzig (2019); and Ideas, Ideals, Deals, Acht Quadrat, Cologne (2017). Her work has been included in group exhibitions such as Neu Cöln, Stoffpavillion Müller, Cologne (2025), Metal and the Flesh, Horse and Pony, Berlin (2024); Tagesschau, Mountains, Berlin (2022); Ici et là-bas, Goethe-Institut, Paris (2022); Tell me I belong, MISC, Athens; Verstärkung / Amplification, HALLE FÜR KUNST Steiermark, Graz (2021); and The Place I Once Called Home, Breiterhof, Munich (2020).

SELECTED EXHIBITIONS

Solo and Two-Person
2023 Drei Schwestern, with Andrey Bogush, Shahin Zarinbal, Berlin
2023 Das Denken in Kreisläufen ist der Schlüssel, KWS, Einbeck
2020 mixed feeling breaking patterns, Zarinbal Khoshbakht, Cologne
2020 Zwei Schwestern, with Andrey Bogush, Zarinbal Khoshbakht, Cologne
2019 Soft Hits, Ortloff, Leipzig
2017 Ideas, Ideals, Deals, Acht Quadrat, Cologne
2016 Unser Deutschland, Acht Quadrat, Cologne

Group Exhibitions
2025 Neu Cöln, Stoffpavillion Müller, Cologne
2025 Feria Material, Mexico City
2024 Metal and the Flesh, Horse and Pony, Berlin
2022 Tagesschau, with Andrey Bogush, Mountains, Berlin
2021 Von der schenkenden Tugend, with Andrey Bogush, Zarinbal Khoshbakht, Cologne
2021 Ici et là-bas, Goethe-Institut Lyon
2021 Tell me I belong, MISC, Athens
2021 Verstärkung / Amplification, HALLE FÜR KUNST Steiermark, Graz,
contribution to solo show by Armin Lorenz Gerold
2020 The Place I Once Called Home, Breiterhof, Munich
2020 Zuhause, Kunstmuseum Bochum
2019 Ici et là-bas, Goethe-Institut Paris
2019 “refuse normality, question everything”, Zarinbal Khoshbakht, Cologne
2019 M19, Werkschauhalle, Spinnerei, Leipzig
2019 Pferdewetten, Pudel Club, Hamburg
2016 Journal, Hochschule für Buchkunst und Gestaltung, Leipzig
2015 Florilegia, Grimaldi Gavin Gallery, London
2015 Postgraduate Art Auction by Sotheby‘s, Lethaby Gallery, London
2015 Boom, bubble, blast - art against the crisis, Motorenhalle, Dresden
2015 Celeste Prize, Assab One, Milan
2014 Nova Award, 3 Olaf Street, London
2014 Degree Show One, Lethaby Gallery, London
2014 Ekistics and Ikebana Observatory vol.1, Oxford House, London
2014 Big Space, Central Saint Martins, London

PROJECTS

Publishing Project: Ida Neustadt Verlag
2023 Drei Schwestern, A white horse, the third nostril, with Jessica Andrey Bogush & Sinaida Michalskaja,
Ida Neustadt Verlag, Berlin
2023 Das Konkrete Argument, with Sanna Helena Berger,
Ida Neustadt Verlag, Berlin
2022 Main Entrance,
Tolia Astakhishvili, Co Westerik, Mark Barker, Niclas Riepshoff, text by Kristian Vistrup Madsen,
Ida Neustadt Verlag, Berlin
2022 The Age, Rachel Fäth, Behrang Karimi, Dala Nasser, Aaron Ratajczyk, Niclas Riepshoff,
Ida Neustadt Verlag, Berlin

Publications
2019 Spirituality: Aperture Magazine #237, New York, guest edited by Wolfgang Tillmans
2017 Humble Cats, Yoffy Press, New York
2015 Sandra Plummer: Sinaida Michalskaja’s Philosophical Windows, Philosophy of Photography, 5.1, London
2015 Elisa Badii: The Question Concerning the Window, Photomonitor.co.uk, London
2014 Stop It, Ditto Press, London
2014 99/13 - Vormwald und Schüler, Kettler
2014 And how do you like Iran?, Videoessay, Arte Creative, Strassbourg
2012 - 2025 POP. Kultur und Kritik, Transcript, Bielefeld
Art Direction & photography
2014 - 2016 Spielplan, Tonhalle, Düsseldorf
content developement, text aquisition
2009 - 2011 KRAUT Magazin, NRW-Forum, Düsseldorf
Editor & photo editor

Curated exhibitions
2024 Voltution
with Suska Bastian, Monika Czyżyk, Michael Kleine, Vera Lutz, Jess Zamora-Turner
2023 Tell me you belong
with Sitara Abuzar Ghaznawi, Sanna Helena Berger, Cihad Caner, Dana DeGiulio, Pauł Sochacki
2022 The Age
with Rachel Fäth, Behrang Karimi, Dala Nasser, Aaron Ratajczyk, Niclas Riepshoff
all at Shahin Zarinbal, Berlin
2021 Tell me I belong
with Mark Barker, Suska Bastian, Behrang Karimi, Natalia Papadopoulou, Paul DD Smith, Valinia Svoronou, Nikolas Ventourakis, MISC, Athens
2017 Perfect Storm
with Andrey Bogush, Paul Hutchinson, Nikolas Ventourakis, Jan van der Til, Maurice van Es, Vendula Knopova, Esther Hover, Thomas Albdorf, NRW-Forum Düsseldorf

EDUCATION 
2016 - 2019 Meisterschülerin of Peter Piller and Heidi Specke
HGB Academy of Visual Arts, Leipzig
2012 - 2014 MA Photography
Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design, London
2007 - 2011 BA Communication Design
University of Applied Sciences Duesseldorf
1997 - 2006 Gymnasium and Abitur
Stadtgymnasium Köln-Porz

SCHOLARSHIPS AND AWARDS
2019 Selected for Plat(t)form
2018 Project Grant Marianne Ingenwerth-Stiftung
2010 - 18 Scholarship of the German National Academic Foundation (Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes)
2014 Nova Award